WAL­TER AL­IBEY

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

An­ton Corneal, a for­mer T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor and An­tho­ny Sher­wood, a for­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er now turn coach, are set to join the sport's world gov­ern­ing body FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee, a Board mem­ber of the T&TFA has re­vealed on Fri­day.

The two are ex­pect­ed to be the ones with sport­ing knowl­edge on a com­mit­tee head­ed by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad, a di­rec­tor of the HAD­CO Group of Com­pa­nies and for­mer banker Nigel Ro­mano and at­tor­ney Judy Daniel, who is the deputy chair­man of the com­mit­tee.

When con­tact­ed Corneal told Guardian Me­dia Sports that he was un­aware of this, but not­ed, if the FI­FA or the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee be­lieve he can be of any as­sis­tance, then he will be will­ing to serve.

When FI­FA an­nounced the names of the peo­ple on the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee on March 27, it said two oth­ers mem­bers were to be ap­point­ed joint­ly by the FI­FA and the Con­fed­er­a­tion of North, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball (CON­CA­CAF). How­ev­er, the ap­point­ments ap­peared to have been de­layed by the le­gal wran­glings be­tween FI­FA and the T&TFA, over the le­git­i­ma­cy of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee ap­point­ment on March 11, and whether the mat­ter could have been set­tled in the lo­cal courts in T&T, or the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) in Switzer­land, where all FI­FA dis­putes are set­tled.

FI­FA in a re­lease on March 11 said: "The Bu­reau of the FI­FA Coun­cil has to­day de­cid­ed to ap­point a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee for the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) in ac­cor­dance with Art. 8 par. 2 of the FI­FA Statutes.

The de­ci­sion fol­lows the re­cent FI­FA/Con­ca­caf fact-find­ing mis­sion to Trinidad and To­ba­go to as­sess, to­geth­er with an in­de­pen­dent au­di­tor, the fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion of TTFA. The mis­sion found that ex­treme­ly low over­all fi­nan­cial man­age­ment meth­ods, com­bined with mas­sive debt, have re­sult­ed in the TTFA fac­ing a very re­al risk of in­sol­ven­cy and illiq­uid­i­ty. Such a sit­u­a­tion is putting at risk the or­gan­i­sa­tion and de­vel­op­ment of foot­ball in the coun­try and cor­rec­tive mea­sures need to be ap­plied ur­gent­ly."

The man­date of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee is: To run the TTFA'S dai­ly af­fairs; To es­tab­lish a debt re­pay­ment plan that is im­ple­mentable by the TTFA; To re­view and amend the TTFA Statutes (and oth­er reg­u­la­tions where nec­es­sary) and to en­sure their com­pli­ance with the FI­FA Statutes and re­quire­ments be­fore du­ly sub­mit­ting them for ap­proval to the TTFA Con­gress, and To or­gan­ise and to con­duct elec­tions of a new TTFA Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee for a four-year man­date.

Corneal, who was forced to take le­gal ac­tion against the TTFA for wages owed to him, could be a per­fect fit for the ap­point­ment, an­oth­er TTFA Board mem­ber be­lieves, as he has worked with the FI­FA for the past five years help­ing coun­tries de­sign their tech­ni­cal de­part­ments, with coach­es' ed­u­ca­tion and with their long-term de­vel­op­ment.

The Board mem­ber said Corneal, who works with the FI­FA as a con­sul­tant, may eas­i­ly be hired on the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, in­stead of hav­ing him work as a con­sul­tant and still ap­point him on the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee al­so.

Sher­wood yes­ter­day could not be reached as calls to his cell phone went unan­swered.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was told al­so that FI­FA has been in search of two for­mer play­ers to be put in­to the po­si­tions.

In ad­di­tion to Corneal and Sher­wood, oth­er names such as Den­sill Theobald, a for­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er who rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try at the 2006 FI­FA World Cup in Ger­many, and Bertille St Clair, an ex-na­tion­al foot­ball coach, who has been bat­tling with health is­sues, were al­so be­ing con­sid­ered, the board mem­ber said.

Guardian Me­dia Sports al­so sought to con­tact Hadad for a com­ment, but calls to his phone went unan­swered.